


Tachycardia

by DoctorLaz



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dimensional Crossover, Ethical Dilemmas, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Medical Procedures, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Slow Burn, Surgery, War Crimes, between Prime and IDW
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 07:46:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9809909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorLaz/pseuds/DoctorLaz
Summary: First Aid tries to raise the dead, but when pulling the switch on an emergency medical procedure involving the soul, one should always be sure that somewhere, in some universe, someone isn’t standing next to quantum engines at takeoff.First Aid is having an Ethical Dilemma.Arcee isn't sure she should exist.Megatron is dealing with multiple pasts.Brainstorm wants to know how First Aid did it.Chromedome is faced with proof of other worlds.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a heavy WIP, and my first real fic in years. It's got a story, but it'll be a long time getting there. Slowburn is the name of this game, and the plot is likely to be much the same way. It's worth it, I promise!

Chapter 1

“Clamp.”

Someone handed First Aid a clamp. He’d been in surgery close to forty-eight hours now, and at this point he hardly recognized the orderlies providing the materials he needed.

“25 nanometer spark cabling, left quadrant.”

Another orderly, this one colored brownish blue held the cabling in the left quad as he soldered it into place.

“I can do this,” he stated to no one in particular, “just gotta take it slow and steady.”

“Helm alteration blueprint overlay”

It wasn’t a perfect fit, but considering what it is he was trying to do, even an altered helm was better than what this patient was dealing with.

Frankly, when this patient had come to him, he’d been shocked to find them alive. Whatever surgeon had dealt with them in the past was more butcher than doctor, and an unethical doctor besides.

More than half of this femme’s frame wasn’t original, and she wasn’t Camien. In all honesty, it looked like whoever she’d fallen in with before had taken a hacksaw to her protoform. The more he saw during this surgery, the clearer it was becoming. He could lay out a rough timeline of events, at least.

First Aid paused, passing a critical eye over the distal core process fuel line, running from transformation cog up, to circle the outside border of the spark chamber. It was holding for now, but with the mean pressure likely to drop with the addition of additional systemic circulation, it bore watching. Maybe it needed another clamp.

As he clamped the fuel line back in place, he thought for a bit, sparing a thought for the person behind the frame on the table.

Whoever this was had been a baseline Cybertronian at some point in their life. They entirely lacked the major anatomical markers of a Camien, and based on spectrographic analysis, they predated the rise of cold constructed femmes on Cybertron. What had once been forged, native Cybertronian had been cruelly and violently reshaped into female form.

Regardless, there was nothing inherently wrong with a female Cybertronian. They existed already on far flung colony worlds, and had all the same rights and privileges of any other Cybertronian. It might have been a bit on the nose, First Aid thought to himself, but quoting Optimus Prime here illustrated that point nicely. Something about “Freedom” being the “right of all sentient beings.” Though this femme had been created, an obvious violation of their person, they were at least healthy.

What was a problem here was the fact that the surgeon responsible for the hack job of a frame conversion was evidently not happy with his work, and decided to be rid of it in the most inelegant and wholly unneeded manner. From helm to toe, this poor femme had been subjected to empurata. It wasn’t even clean empurata, which offended him on the dual fronts of “rational, functioning member of society” and “doctor who actually took pride in his work.”

He’d been in surgery for quite some time now, and had the majority of the empurata repaired. Which, were he keeping score, would be the first total empurata replacement conducted anywhere other than back alley clinics run by smugglers and criminals.

He of course had no idea what this Cybertronian looked like before this butchery, as femme or mech. He’d been conservative and professional, installing both spike and valve, (which had also been removed by whatever savage had worked on them in the first place) digits slim enough for any body type, and a nice, androgynous helm design.

He’d have a better approach to cosmetics once his patient was conscious, of course. He’d decided to leave them simple enough to be changed with minimal effort. He’d had to work with what he had, unfortunately, and the pinkish color his patient had come in with was almost completely gone. In its place was a blued cybersteel with variable hardness factors and microfilaments. It was cheaper than the good stuff, but durable and combat ready.

All the remained now was the face and the connection point between the Spark, Brain Module and T-Cog. Motioning for silence, he gave his patient a quick once over, and connected her empurata face plating to her new helm with an improvised cortical psychic patch. He’d transplanted the new helm over much earlier in the surgery, the empurata’d plating hanging macabrely from a set of clamps.

“Clear!” First Aid shouted, throwing the first switch and sending Energon whirring through the blades of her exposed T-Cog. It spun up nicely, driving energon up, to her spark casing, and down, to her fuel pump.

Once the fuel pump took over for the T-Cogs slower circulation hardware, First Aid allowed himself a moment of calm. The difficult surgery was out of the way, and all the remained was retrieving her mindstate from the All-Spark. Nothing difficult or anything.

He had been working on a frankly unprecedented method of Spark Resuscitation, spurred initially by his successful encounter with Fort Max on Delphi. It involved an excruciatingly painful partial Spark transplant, giving the running T-Cog and existing brain module just enough of a jolt to restore backups, without trying to replicate the existing donor Spark. No orderly would provide that. As with all experimental procedures, First Aid was both surgeon and test subject.

Of course, medicine never goes right, and bringing the dead and dying back to life is never easy. Furthermore, when pulling the switch on an emergency medical procedure involving the soul, one should always be sure that somewhere, in some universe, someone isn’t standing next to quantum engines at takeoff.

 

 

 

 

  **o0o**

Millions of miles, years, and untold dimensions away, Arcee looked up from a rather fatal case of being impaled.

“First Arcee, then we go find Cliffjumper.” hissed Starscream, talons slick with spilled energon.

“He shouldn’t be too hard to find, after all. I’m sure he’ll come looking for his precious Autobot partner.”

Arcee tried to speak, to offer some clever retort, but the bubbling energon welling into her Spark Chamber made speech next to impossible. Audials rapidly dialing down, she didn’t hear the interim leader of the Decepticons give the order for the ship to jump. She did feel the thrum of the quantum engines, however, and the sickening twist of reality opposite the wall she was slumped against, giving up the ghost just in time for it to be ripped away from the All-Spark by the hole being torn in space not ten feet away.

Arcee woke up screaming, threatening with the severe intensity to destroy First Aid’s very hard work on replacing emotionless empurata with a rich, many toned vocalizer. The newly soldered metal of her throat strained, and First Aid struggled to give orders through the mounting agony coursing through his Spark.

Without even quite realizing it, he had joined her in screaming, though his screams were closer to a litany to Primus and Solus Prime, incoherent begging to contrast the wordless scream tearing out of his patient. Whatever he said must have gotten through to at least one of the Primes, because he finally marshalled the strength to say something productive. Venting hard, he sent a tray of instruments cascading to the floor as he gestured wildly at the orderlies working the fuel lines.

“For Primus’ sake, would one of you push 12 of SOMETHING before she tears her vocalizer out of her throat?”

The blue brown orderly snapped out of staring long enough to inject 12 drams of white T-7 Energon derivative. It was pretty much the most powerful sedative he had access too, and all told, he probably only had thirty drams in total.

Right now, his patient wasn’t having any trouble with circulation. Honestly, they were experiencing the exact opposite, energon thrumming through bulging fuel lines, threatening to burst. It was a mark of his skill that they didn’t, and he spared one hysterical moment of thanks to the Primes that he had placed a second clamp for the distal fuel line.

Already getting used to the dull ache in his spark chamber, First Aid gave himself a ten count as the T-7 did its work. The shrill beeping of the various monitors attached to his patient gradually calmed, relaxing back to the rhythmic blips of a steady spark beat and the regular pistoning of an undamaged fuel pump.

Ten count finished, First Aid gave his newly sedated and alive patient a once over, pride and apprehension warring in his mind. On one hand, he’d raised the dead. On the other, he’d raised the dead. That was like...an affront to Primus, and also super unethical. He wouldn’t even know if he were dealing with a normal, if psychologically scarred Cybertronian or the unholy spawn of Unicron until they regained consciousness, which wouldn’t be for a few hours. They’d have to move quickly during that time, finishing the last minute patching and sealing, hopefully without additional, very expensive sedation.

The vents on First Aid’s chest hummed, hot air causing the smallest heat shimmer to form around him. This mystery Cybertronian was 100% repaired, empurata and incidental damage torn apart and reassembled in a marathon, nearly sixty-hour surgery. Once they had everything in place, First Aid had grabbed exactly twenty-five minutes of recharge, and then prepared to reenter the operating theatre.

In the next few minutes, they’d be flushing the remainder of the T-7 from the mystery femme’s systems and Primus willing, she’d wake up sane, healthy, and in a mood to listen.

First, decontamination. A long, but obviously very necessary procedure. If he, or anyone else was going into the operating theatre, they were getting zapped. A nice current, strong enough to kill all but the nastiest Cybertronian pathogens. It hurt like hell, but the time alone in a chamber full of arcing electricity gave First Aid more time to consider just what he was going to do with his patient.

Flagrant violations of medical ethics aside, in the next room over was someone who had been medically dead. He was the only person who even understood why they were alive, and the nurses and orderlies were starting to stare at him; awe, and a little bit of fear written on their faces. He’d know more once he examined the patient in more detail, hopefully with their full cooperation.

 

**o0o**

Arcee woke up a good deal faster than expected. Being dead wasn’t exactly a therapeutic experience, and even the strongest sedatives can be overcome when your entire soul is screaming that you should not be alive to be sedated in the first place. Her optics snapped open, quickly dialing shut against the harsh glare of ceiling mounted lights.

Not Jasper, then. This was a ship.

Arcee’s spark jumped again, reminding her that she was indeed alive. Just, not in familiar territory.

A ship. Not the Nemesis. Too clean, too new. Without moving her head, she did her best to take stock of the room she was in. Harsh lighting. Very bright. Likely medical in nature.

For a split second, she felt cold metal piercing her chest plating, and only years spent training in guerilla tactics kept her from feeling for a wound. She had to stay quiet and immobile. Appear unconscious, just like they expected her to be.

Who were they, then? Doctors? The harsh scent of decontaminants and the burn of implanted auxiliary fuel lines in her wrists told her that she was probably correct.

Had Cliff gotten her off the Nemesis before she..

 

Died.

 

No. She’d died. Felt her spark flutter out inside her chest.

Arcee flexed her right hand experimentally. She wasn't restrained. That was good. For now, though, it meant she could pass a hand over her chest, still expecting to feel a gaping hole where her brand should be.

She didn’t. There were stitches, sure, welded sutures clamping her plating together, but not where she could feel what should have been a fatal wound.

This was different. As her mind focused, she was becoming aware of real, non-imagined injuries all over her body. All taken care of by someone with surgical skill, but still obvious. She’d been injured, somehow. Injured, everywhere except the place she could actually feel the nagging sensation of a wound.

Arcee allowed herself a small headshake, trying to clear any remaining sedatives clouding her thoughts. Her whole body felt heavy, unfamiliar, and wrong.

Across the room, being quite inconsiderate of her internal struggle, a door opened, sliding into the wall with a quiet hiss. A group of people filed in, catching her mid shake like a startled turbofox.

Doctors. She had been right about that, at least. She hadn’t totally lost her edge. There were a few larger frames, orderlies, most likely. Their builds and genders were obscured by bulky, one size fits all medical suites. All the little tools that the doctor would need.

The doctor, for what it was worth, was blindingly obvious. He had the same colors as Ratchet, and if she had to hazard a guess, a similar alt mode. For what it was worth, he did have an Autobot Brand, though his orderlies were obscured. He didn’t seem threatening, but based on her sutures and soldering, he was intimately familiar with the inner workings of her frame.

Doing her best to sit up, Arcee managed to get onto one knee, the other still stretched out in front of her. She wasn’t going to run just yet, but she needed some answers.

 

 

**o0o**

 First Aid smiled behind his mask. Not being the hissing, unholy spawn of Unicron right off the bat was a good sign. Holding one hand out placatingly, he handed the data tablet he had been perusing back to the orderly on his right. Respecting the obviously bizarre experience that his patient was likely dealing with, he didn’t say anything right away, content to just stand there and exude pacifism.

He managed it for about twenty minutes, which was a record for the curious medic. To her credit, the mystery femme relaxed at least a little bit, armor plating and kibble no longer bristling with agitation. Instead, her cool blue optics regard him with equal parts suspicion, dismissive amusement, and if First Aid were honest with himself, a bit of contempt. He hadn’t attempted to move in the intervening time, only gesturing that the orderlies were free to go, unneeded. He kept the tablet though. Something told him he’d need it.


End file.
